Christine

To read the diary of Anna Christine Anderson Thorup is to read one of the sweetest love stories that has been written, for she truly loved her husband, her family, her fellow man, and the Lord, as her story will confirm.

Anna Christine wept for she had known the sting of death and tribulations.

Her love for her children carried her through, and she had no desire to lose another one of them. The children recall with delight their long winter evenings when they would sit around the old kitchen stove and in the light of the flickering flames listen intently to her wonderful stories

Herman and Anna had five children – Anne, Herman, Joseph, Eliza, and William. The little girl died in an epidemic that also took two of the remaining children of the first wife.

There were sad times from this. Also, the persecution because of the practice of polygamy was a trial hard to bear. Many children died directly or indirectly because of it, and the family had to be separated because of the prison terms that Herman was sentenced to. We shall not dwell on the problems that accompanied these prison sentences, though they were many. But Benjamin Harrison, then President of the United States of America, wrote out a commutation for the six-month sentence Herman was serving, due to his splendid record and his suffering family. Many pages could be written of the cruelty of the U.S. Marshals and the suffering heaped upon the Saints who were trying to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ.